Automatic electronic device detection

ABSTRACT

A system that detects cellular telephone and other electronic use within an unauthorized locations. The location can be detected by GPS or triangulation, and once detected can automatically produce certain operations.

The present application is a continuation of Ser. No. 10/455,853, filedJun. 6, 2003 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,765,492, which is a continuation ofSer. No. 09/588,990 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,580,372), filed Jun. 6, 2000, whichis a continuation in part of Ser. No. 09/439,376 (U.S. Pat. No.6,222,458) filed Nov. 15, 1999.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to automatic detection of positions ofelectronic devices, e.g., radio devices, and determining if thatposition is unauthorized.

BACKGROUND

Concerns have recently been raised about the safety of cellular phonesaround combustible materials. At least one highly-publicized report hasindicated that an operating cellular phone could cause an explosion at agas station.

Defense against this issue could be difficult. Gas stations are oftenun-staffed, or minimally staffed. The attendants often stay within aburglary-protected area. The attendants are often not able or notmotivated to adequately police whether a cellular phone or other radiotransmitting device is being used.

SUMMARY

The present application teaches detecting locations of an electronicdevice and determining if that location is within an unauthorizedlocation. Specific embodiments include detection by satellitepositioning systems, detection by triangulation, and detection by animager.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other aspects will now be described in detail with respect tothe accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 shows a basic block diagram of the first embodiment whichautomatically detects a cellular telephone which is in use; and

FIG. 2 shows a shielding embodiment;

FIG. 3 shows a satellite positioning system embodiment;

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of operation of the satellite positioningsystem;

FIG. 5 shows a triangulation embodiment;

FIG. 6 shows a camera embodiment; and

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart of operation of the camera embodiment when usedin its automatic mode.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A first embodiment shown in FIG. 1 protects by automatic detection. Inthis embodiment, the cellular phone is a standard cellular telephone,e.g. IS-95, AMPS, CDMA, or GSM or other standard. The telephone also isequipped with a short range communicator, such as a Bluetooth (TM)transmitter. Bluetooth protocol is described in Bluetooth Specification,version 1.0, available at www.bluetooth.com. While Bluetooth isdescribed herein as the preferred communication protocol, it should beunderstood that any other wireless communication protocols such aswireless LAN could be used for similar effect.

Either the entire perimeter of the gas station, or only portions of theperimeter of the gas station, can optionally be RF shielded. This helpsensure that only cellular telephones entering the gas station, and notthose just passing the gas station, are detected.

In this embodiment, a central area 100, e.g. the area of the attendantstation, has a Bluetooth transceiver device 105 therein. The Bluetoothtransceiver 105 is preferably configured to send the messages, describedherein, using Bluetooth's short range communication mode. In the shortrange mode, Bluetooth may transmit for a distance of, for example, 10meters. The distance can also be adjusted, by adjusting the power outputof the Bluetooth device, to avoid erroneous detection of passing cars,as compared with cars that actually enter the gas station. Another wayof avoiding erroneous detection of passing cars is to require theBluetooth acquisition to persist for, e.g. 90 seconds prior toestablishing a detection.

The central transceiver 105 is continually sending Bluetooth inquiries,directed to all discoverable Bluetooth devices such as 110 within range.Each discoverable Bluetooth devices, responds to an inquiry byindicating its presence, and providing certain information such as itsBluetooth address, and its device type. The system monitors to detect adevice type indicating a cellular telephone, or radio. The system canrespond in different modes.

In an enhanced safety mode, all cellular telephones must actually beturned off upon entering the station. This avoids any incoming calls. Anincoming call could actuate the phone ringer, causing the phone to ringand possibly causing the user to answer. Any detection of an activecellular telephone causes an alarm. The alarm is displayed as 115 in thecentral Bluetooth unit. This alarm can stop delivery of all fuel untilthe alarm is quashed. The termination of fuel delivery can be doneautomatically in response to a detection of an operating cellular phone,or can be manually effected by an attendant upon detecting the alarm.

In one mode, the system displays “pump stopped because of active cellphone device” on the gas pump(s). This prompts the owner of the cellphone to turn off the cell phone. After the cell phone is turned off,subsequent Bluetooth inquiries are negative, and gas pumping can bere-enabled.

Some Bluetooth phones may support automatic shutoff by Bluetooth, and ifso, an automatic shutoff command may be sent.

In another mode, after receiving the indication of a Bluetooth device120, the central Bluetooth transceiver 105 sends a page to thediscovered Bluetooth device 120. The Bluetooth device 120 responds tothe page, thereby establishing communications. At that point, thecentral device 105 can ask the Bluetooth device 120, e.g. cell phone,for certain status information. This can include an inquiry of whetherthe cell phone is transmitting or on a call. If the cell phone answers“yes” at that point, an alarm can be established. The alarm which can behandled as described above.

As a modification to the previously described embodiment, the pagingchannel can be maintained active until the cell phone 120 is turned off,at which time pumping can be resumed.

The above embodiment describes using Bluetooth, which is an intelligentwireless protocol that has addressed signals and responses to thoseaddressed signals. Other intelligent wireless protocols can be used. Itis also possible, however, to simply passively detect signals. Theeffectiveness of this system can be increased when coupled with apartial or complete radio shield around the station, as describedherein.

At least a part of the perimeter of the gas station can be shielded.This shield 140 can be located in areas to block transmission fromcellular repeaters 150. Another alternative is the shield can be formedfrom a plurality of separated shield parts form a shielding effectbetween the wires. The wires are located in areas where the autos neednot enter or leave the station. The areas 130 where the autos enter andleave the station can be attenuated by the shielding effect of thewires. In this case, the wires are used to model a shielding effectalong a plane of shielding. Alternatively, partial shielding can beused. When the automobile enters the gas station, it comes within atleast partly the shielded area. The cell phone detection unit 102 scansthe area for the presence of RF emissions of the type that would beemitted by the cellular radio portion, e.g., the local oscillator of acellular phone. Upon detection of these emissions, an alarm isestablished. The alarm handling routine can proceed as described above.

In the first mode discussed above, any addressed system of communicationcan be used. In the second mode, any passive means of communication canbe used. The detection of local oscillators is well known and is used,for example, for detecting unauthorized television reception in paycable systems.

Another embodiment is also passive. Dangers from the cell phone iscaused by RF communication. This embodiment prevents RF communicationwithin the area of the gas station. This embodiment prevents all form ofcell phone communication from occurring within the protected area. Theembodiment shown in FIG. 2 uses an at least partly shielded area 200,with a roof 205 over the protected area. The roof is RF shielded, i.e.,covered by copper mesh. Other shielding elements 210, 215 can be locatedin a predetermined pattern to provide RF shielding at predeterminedareas inside the station. This effectively forms an RF shield thatprevents most or all RF from the entering the station. By so doing, cellphone communication is at least significantly attenuated. Even if theuser has their cell phone on, they will not be able to make or receivecalls. If the user is on a call, the call will be terminated when theyenter the RF protected area. The user may still have their cell phone oninside the station but the cell phone will be in a very low power, or“standby”, consumption mode. Only the receive local oscillator will beoperating. The phone is unable to receive a ring tone and unable toplace a call.

Yet another modification of the FIG. 2 embodiment includes a short-rangejammer 220 within the protected area 200. If a jammer is used, theshielding can be less complete. The jammer is placed close to theshield, e.g., under the shielded roof as shown.

The jammer operates by sweeping across all the cellular phonefrequencies of interest. For example, a triangle wave generator 222 canbe used to drive a varactor diode 224 configured as a tuner part, tosweep across all the frequencies. The jammer is driven by white or pinknoise from noise generator 226. RF transmitter 228 transmits white orpink noise across the entire frequency band over which cellular phonestransmit and receive.

The jammer preferably operates at a restricted power for two reasons.First, the power should be low enough so that the jamming effect doesnot extend outside the protected region. The power level can beadjustable, so that the total power output can be adjusted to jam withinthe desired area, and not jam outside the desired area. By so doing,cell phone traffic and communications are interrupted.

Second, the power may need to be low enough to avoid violating FCC orother comparable regulation.

This can be used by itself, with a partial RF shield, or with animproved RF shield. Even with an imperfect RF shield, the cell phonejammer could be useful since it could prevent cell phone communications.

In particular, this system could prevent incoming calls, preventing oneof the concerns at a gas station—the incoming ring signal. Also, whilecommunications might be possible, the call would likely be noisy and/oreasily dropped, thereby frustrating the user.

Another embodiment of the above extends these teachings described aboveto use in other areas besides stations for delivery of combustiblematerial. For example, the system described in the second embodimentwould have special application in areas where cell phones are found byothers to be annoying. This includes hospital emergency rooms, museums,houses of worship, and other such areas where cellular phones and pagersare though to be inappropriate.

Other modifications are contemplated. For example, while the presentapplication has described the combustible material being gasoline, itshould be understood that other combustible materials, such as propane,could also be protected in similar ways.

Another embodiment is shown in FIG. 3. The portable telephone may beequipped with a satellite positioning system device, e.g. a globalpositioning system (“GPS”) 300. When so equipped, the location of theportable telephone 299 can be detected. The portable telephone 299 usesthe GPS signals to determine a present location, and can transmitinformation indicating the current coordinates using a transmitter 305.Transmitter 305 can be an existing item, e.g., the RF transmitter usedfor cellular communication, or a Bluetooth device.

Receiver 310 receives the coordinate information signal, which can beraw GPS information, or processed information. Receiver 310 isassociated with a computer 312 that has a database 315. The databasestores information indicating hot zones. The hot zones represent areaswhere cell phone use, or other electronic device use, is not allowed.Exemplary hot zones can include gas stations, hospital emergency rooms,airplanes and other locations where cell phone use may be prohibited.The database 315 may include one or many sets of coordinates.

Operation is shown in the flowchart of FIG. 4.

Whenever the electronic device, here a cell phone, is in use, it mayproduce outputs indicating its GPS location at 400. Those values arecompared with the hot zone location or locations stored in the databaseat 405. When that output is detected to be in the hot zone, action maybe taken. The action may include warning the user, terminating the call,blocking the call or any of the other actions described above, at 410.This warning can be a beep or message displayed in the ear of thehandset, via transmitter 312 sending to a receiver 314 of the cellphone, e.g. the RF receiver or a Bluetooth device. The detection canalso shut off the telephone via a control signal. For example, Bluetooth(TM) supports such an automatic control signal. The detection oflocation can be done in a central office, or in the gas station itself.For example, each gas station could monitor these GPS coordinates, andlook for its own coordinates as the hot zone.

Previous systems that prevented cell phone use in specified locationshad the conceivable drawback of preventing use of the cell phones in acase of a true emergency. An advantage of this system is that thedetection is done intelligently. Therefore, the system can be used toprevent certain calls but not prevent others. For example, this systemmay enable all calls to specified emergency numbers, e.g., calls to 911,and blocking or alarm of other calls.

A disclosed mode is used specifically in a gas station. The aboveembodiment has described using GPS to automatically detect the locationof a cellular telephone. GPS may be built into these telephones in orderto facilitate use in an emergency. This detection can also be used todetect some other electronic device, such as a PDA or any otherelectronic device that has GPS or any other automatic position locationdetection system built in.

Another embodiment shown in FIG. 5 uses an alternative system toautomatically detect a position of a portable telephone within anundesired zone. This system provides multiple low power receiverslocated near perimeters of the zone. Each of the receivers detectstransmission from cell phones or other electronic devices. These systemsthen use triangulation to determine the position of the cell phone. Forexample, FIG. 5 shows four nodes, 501, 510, 530 and 540. Each of thenode 500 includes wireless communication capability, shown as 502, 504,to communicate with the other nodes and receive information therefromand send information thereto. Node 501 receives all the information andsends it to processing computer 520. Each of these nodes receives asignal from portable telephones or electronic devices 550, 552 when thedevices are transmitting. Each of these nodes determines a phase-shiftor delay amount in the signal from this using conventional triangulationtechniques. A distance to the signal source 550, 552 can be determined.

If the portable phone is in the position 552, which is an authorizedposition, then the distance to the two nodes 500, 510 will be longerthan the distance to the two antennas 530, 540. This indicates that thecell phone is outside the perimeter location, and hence it use isauthorized.

In contrast, if the distance to all of the antennas is approximately thesame, or within thirty percent of one another, then the portable phone550 is within the perimeter and unauthorized for use. Actions can betaken as described above, to warn or terminate the unauthorized use canthen be carried out. As in the above embodiments, if the termination ofuse is carried out in the central office, it can allow call to specifiednumbers, such as emergency numbers.

Another operation is shown in FIG. 6. A miniature camera 605 isassociated with the pump for delivery of combustible materials, here gaspump 600. This camera takes real time images of the users such as 610who stand in front of the gas pump 600. The device may use a very wideangle lens such as the peephole type, used to see users through doors.This obtains an image of each user 610 who is standing at each gas pump600. The image is coupled to a processor 620.

In one embodiment, these images can simply be relayed back to theattendant who can view these users, e.g. on a multiple screen display,and manually turn off the pump or warn, upon seeing a user using a cellphone.

In another embodiment, the processor uses machine vision techniques toautomatically recognize portable telephone use. The image from camera605 is coupled to processor 620, which carries out the flowchart at FIG.7. An image is obtained at 700. There are typically less than 100different kinds of cellular telephones available on the market. Theoutline and shape of each of these cellular telephones can be storedwithin the image memory in a database. This database is accessed at 702.The image obtained through the lens is correlated across the entireimage at 704. When the image matches a known cellular telephone image, amatch is detected at 706. This can cause an action to be taken at 708,e.g., either cause an automatic alarm, or produce a signal to theattendant, who then verifies whether the cellular telephone is reallybeing used. The attendant can take actions as noted above.

The FIGS. 3–7 embodiments have described use at gas pumps. However,these systems are also usable in any place where cellular telephone orother electronic device use is restricted. This can include use inairplanes, hospitals, and in certain other places. In any of theselocations, the use of a cellular telephone or other type device can beautomatically detected. Some action can be automatically taken.

Other modifications are contemplated. For example, while the presentapplication has described the combustible material being gasoline, itshould be understood that other combustible materials, such as propane,could also be protected in similar ways. Other electronic devices,besides portable telephones can be detected, including other two wayradios, and other electronic devices.

1. A detection system, comprising: a cell phone detection system,automatically detecting a cell phone, and producing an output signalindicative thereof; and a fuel controlling part, responsive to saidoutput signal, controlling dispensing of fuel responsive to said outputsignal.
 2. A system as in claim 1, wherein said cell phone detectionsystem detects operation of electronic components within the cell phone.3. A system as in claim 2, wherein said cell phone detection system is asystem which detects a local oscillator within the cell phone.
 4. Asystem as in claim 1, wherein said cell phone detection system detects awireless protocol used by the cell phone.
 5. A system as in claim 4,wherein said cell phone detection system detects address signals used bythe cell phone as part of said wireless protocol.
 6. A system as inclaim 5, wherein said wireless protocol is Bluetooth.
 7. A system as inclaim 1, wherein said cell phone detection system operates to send apage to each discovered cell phone which requests an answer from saideach cell phone, and to determine a status of the cell phone based onsaid page.
 8. A system as in claim 1, wherein said fuel controlling partoperates to prevent fuel from being dispensed while a cell phone is inuse.
 9. A method, comprising: automatically detecting use of a cellphone within a gas station, and producing an indication of saiddetecting; and controlling dispensing of fuel based on said indication.10. A method as in claim 9, wherein said automatically detectingcomprises detecting operation of an electronic components within thecell phone.
 11. A method as in claim 10, wherein said electroniccomponents includes a local oscillator part.
 12. A method as in claim10, wherein said electronic components includes a component whichoperates a wireless protocol.
 13. A method as in claim 9, wherein saidautomatically detecting comprises detecting an addressed protocol,communicating with the cell phone using said addressed protocol, andproducing said indication based on said communicating.
 14. A method asin claim 13, wherein said addressed protocol includes Bluetooth.
 15. Amethod as in claim 9, wherein said automatically detecting comprisespassively detecting signals from the cell phone, without communicatingwith the cell phone.